The Brewers

View our 2018 participating homebrewers, representing Central Texas

2018 Participation

To participate in this year's event all interested brewers must first enter the 2018 Homebrew Festival Homebrew Competition. All entries must be received at the drop off location (Austin Homebrew Supply - 9129 Metric Blvd. Austin, TX 78758) between Monday, October 8, 2018 until no later than Friday, October 12, 2018 at 7 p.m. CST.

All winners from the Austin Homebrew Festival Competition and up to the top 30 brewers by points, as well as special invitees, will be invited to serve their homebrew and compete for the People's Choice Award at the 2018 Austin Homebrew Festival on November 27, 2018.

Our 2018 Homebrewers

Nathaniel Apodaca & David Weaks

Nathaniel migrated from New Mexico, where his love of craft beer originates, to Austin in 2015. He started brewing in 2018, when he was looking for a kombucha starter and discovered the local Homebrew store. He was instantly hooked and began to recreate beers he could only get back in New Mexico. He enjoys making all things fermentable and experimenting with non traditional ingredients, to be shared with friend. His goal is to create craft beers people not only love, but crave.

Keith Bradley & Pam Bradley

Keith Bradley has been an award winning homebrewer since he started brewing extract beers on his apartment stovetop in 1993. Keith started winning awards for his homebrew locally in 1993 and has since won in homebrew competitions from coast to coast amassing more than 300 awards including several Best of Show wins, one being 2015’s Dixie cup in Houston. Keith moved on to all grain brewing with the help of an anniversary gift from his employer and moved up to his current system when a neighbor ran a car into his garage and destroyed his old one. Keith has placed several times in the National Homebrewers Competition and in the Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing. He has also participated in the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am competition for six years in a row, each time with a different brewery. Keith has been on the winning team in the Lone Star Circuit 5 times in the last seven years and retired from competition in 2015, winning the LSC homebrew team of the year three years in a row along with his wife Pam, who is the self-proclaimed CEO, CFO, QC and inventory control for their efforts as Bradley Brewing. Keith enjoys sharing his home brewing knowledge with less experienced brewers and invites them over to the “Brewcave” in his garage for hands on experience. Keith’s favorite styles of beer to brew are German lagers and Imperial IPA’s. Keith is a member of two local homebrew clubs, the Austin Zealots and the Texas Carboys.

Tim Breining

Michael Brown & Scott Wilcox

A previous AHB Community School Board Member and parent, 2018 will mark Michael's 7th BrewFest as a brewer. Michael has been homebrewing since 2007 and started crafting original recipes with local ingredients early on.

Matt Dondelinger

Originally from Española, New Mexico, Matt has lived in Austin for almost a decade. He first got into home brewing as a way to feed his love of Belgian style beers and inability to find flavor combinations he liked. “I have been home brewing for around 8 years and it has become an immense passion of mine. I love mixing classic styles of beer with New Mexican flavors and hope to open my own brewery very soon.”

Lonnie Dutton

Lonnie is a Native Texan and veteran who fell in love with craft beers, specifically Redhook ESB and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the late 80's early 90's while traveling to Seattle for work. He learned metrology (the art of calibration) while in the USAF and has been in the industry ever since. He has two daughters and five grandkids.

First year as a home brewer. While touring Dogfish Brewing Company in Delaware four years ago, I noticed the Sabco Brewmagic system that they used for beer development. I took a picture of the system and it was my goal to get one for myself. This year I acquired one from craigslist and I have been brewing beer ever since. I had a home beer festival in October where I featured four homebrews and it was a great success, so I entered the Austin Homebrew competition with two those beers. I am honored to be serving in this years festival. I hope to turn my homebrewing experience into a brewpub to share my passion with my grandkids.

Ricardo Fritzsche

Ricardo Fritzsche was born in Buenos Aires, where he completed undergraduate studies before moving to Austin, Texas to complete masters and doctorate degrees in human physiology. Ricardo started mini-mash brewing in 2008 and all-grain brewing upon moving to Munich in 2010, where he actively participated in the local homebrew club. In 2016, upon moving back to Austin, Ricardo started participating in US competitions as a member of the Austin Zealots. In three years, Ricardo received more than 100 medals in major Texas competitions and won the Lone Star (Texas) circuit in 2016.

Shannon Harris & Tiana Harris

Shannon Harris is new face to the Austin, TX homebrewing scene after relocating from Los Angeles, CA. Being a World traveling gypsy brewer, beer diversity activist, craft beer brand influencer/ambassador, Shannon has planted his roots in Austin making good strides in the homebrew and craft beer communities. The love of homebrewing struck in 2016 when Shannon and his wife/assistant brewer Tiana purchased a home in Pflugerville granting them more space to take on the hobby and placing in the 2017 National Homebrew Competitionz

From IPAs to Stouts, Saisons to sours; this duo has landed features to brew with breweries such as Dancing Gnome, Yakima Craft Brewing, and some local favorites such as Red Horn Coffee & Brew and Hi Sign Brewing. They’ve also brewed beer in Africa, Italy, Germany and Mexico when traveling internationally. Follow their journey on Instagram under the account @TheBrewBrotha and @TheBlondeBrewChick today!

Christian Holton

Christian has been brewing beer for quite a while, and this will be his fifth or sixth showing at the AHB Brewfest.

Matt Hunt

”All it took was my first Mr. Beer kit on Christmas morning 2007. I remember forcing down that foul tasting science experiment with a new drive to make better beer. I am now 11 years into this hobby of obsessing over yeast, fine tuning every batch, and nerding out on beer science. In the end, for me it’s all about making great beer and sharing this labor of love with friends."“

Jordan Kaiser

Jordan Kaiser is an Austin homebrewer who is currently following his dreams of starting his own brewery. Jordan has been brewing in his apartment for the past year and has been focusing on unique, experimental and progressive beers that you wouldn't find at just any microbrewery. You can usually catch Jordan listening to live music at Mort Subite or hiking on the Greenbelt when he's not brewing.

The Grackle Brew Club has been making beers together at each others Austin homes for a little over a year. They mostly brew to socialize and still have something to show for it afterwards.

Ronnie Lawson

Judy Lloyd & Ken Lloyd

Ken & JudyAnn Lloyd, are a musical duo named “Bear Creek Wilderness”. (BearCreekWilderness.com). They began their sporadic home brewing adventure together after their marriage in the year 2000. It all started with an extract Christmas brew.

Ken had been brewing for a decade in the kitchen from extracts. He was armed with the first 1984 edition of Charlie Papazian’s “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing”. He also had a video to share with his new wife, “Homebrew with Charlie Papazian”. “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew!” She was hooked and together they eventually found joy in all grain brewing. In 2016, Ken with help from a friend, custom fabricated a brew cart. Using a RIMS, keggles and propane they moved to the porch. In 2017 they went back to the kitchen with a shiny new Robo Brew unit to tinker and tweak their recipes. They have diverse taste and love Saisons, Hefeweizens, Pale Ales, IPAs and Dark beers. JudyAnn captured “Bear Creek Wilderness Bloomin’ Wild Yeast” in May 2016. It is an amazing beast of a yeast that they use for their Saisons.

Reid Mangan & Japhia Mangan

Japhia and Reid Mangan have been homebrewing since 2011 under the moniker CLDRN. The name pays homage to the real pioneers in homebrewing – medieval woman. In 2014 they swore they would never de-label a beer bottle again, and they've been kicking kegs ever since.

Rob McDonald

Rob has been a homebrewer since 2005. He enjoys all classic German and Belgian styles with a mix of Czech and English styles. He has been a culinary arts educator for high school and adults in the Austin area since 2006 and lover of fermentations. He enjoys making other items like sauerkraut, yogurt and kombucha. He believes that every human needs food literacy and the understanding of the earth and the resources that it provides and beer is one of those perfect examples of the human interaction with simple ingredients. You won’t find any items in his beers outside of the traditional grains, hops, yeast and local water, oh, and the occasional Belgian candy syrup. He says, dry hopping seems like a missed opportunity to utilize the hop flower beyond the boil and to use it with multiple additions during the process from start to bottle.

Marcus Minchew & Christina Minchew

Marcus is an engineer who enjoys beer. Nearly 3 years ago, his lovely wife, Christina, gave him a homebrewing kit for his birthday. “I'm not sure that she realized what she'd done at that time. I know that I didn't foresee how this hobby would take over my garage. I've made about 35 batches since then, and I'm honored to be serving my beer at the Austin Homebrew Festival.”

Dave Moore & Tiffany Moore

Dave and Tiffany Moore of the Definitive Ales homebrewing collective began crafting fun, crushable ales and the occasional lager at home circa 2006. Starting with everyone’s favorite just add water kits, Dave soon tuned into the science and specifics of process control and fermentation, graduating to all grain brewing sometime in 2008. Dave and Tiffany’s passion for quality has only grown since then, with a focus on being students of modern and historic brewing processes and styles including wild and sour fermentations.

Dave and Tiffany brew a majority of their beer for friends and family. Known to quietly enter a competition here and there, they won second place at the 2014 National Homebrew Competition (NHC) finals for a 100% Brett fermented Hefeweizen, and have placed in the top three in other NHC first round competitions throughout the years. It was once rumored that their English Porter was so damn good it was going to make its way to a local Austin brewery’s taproom for public consumption. You can check their musings at www.facebook.com/definitiveales and on Instagram @definitiveales. Dave and Tiffany love talking all things beer and brewing. So swing by, have a chat, raise a glass, and sip some brew.

Jared Murray

Jared is a recent Austin transplant who's been a homebrewer for about 6 months He was initiated into the hobby by having a couple of delicious homebrews with his brother-in-law. Things have escalated quickly from his first AHBS kit, which fermented at a cool 83F and nearly painted his ceiling. He loves the constant experimentation of the hobby, which complements his day job as a statistics professor at UT.

Napp Nazworth

Napp, a Florida native, began brewing 6 years ago. His tastes tend toward malty, especially English, beer styles, though likes to mix it up with German and American styles on occasion.

Ross Winner

It all started with a little craft beer podcast. Since starting that Ross and Clint's love of craft beer has grown exponentially. Not just the love of drinking craft beer but the love of creating something amazing and the love of sharing that feeling with others. They haven't been brewing long but are growing as brewers by leaps and bounds with every batch.